


skinny fleas

by dorypop



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Child Abuse, Child Neglect, Childhood Friends, Gen, Hurt Adam Parrish, Hurt/Comfort, Kid Fic, Ronan Lynch & Blue Sargent Friendship, all the Lynch brothers plus Blue and Adam go to the same elementary school, alternative universe, and Aurora is the school librarian!, as in they're all kids!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-22
Updated: 2020-10-22
Packaged: 2021-03-09 06:53:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27149689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dorypop/pseuds/dorypop
Summary: “I don’t think I can wait ‘til Monday to keep reading,” Adam confessed, and it was the first time Aurora had seen him smile. He was missing a tooth.“What’s it about?” Blue Sargent asked, also coming to the desk with the latest issue in a horror story compilation collection between her hands.Adam bit his bottom lip before turning to face her. “Dragons,” he said, in a somewhat firm whisper.That made Matthew’s head snap up.“Dragons are cool!”(School librarian Aurora Lynch befriends second-grader Adam Parrish).
Relationships: Aurora Lynch & Adam Parrish, Ronan Lynch & Adam Parrish
Comments: 23
Kudos: 80





	skinny fleas

Adam Parrish was a very quiet kid.

That was, of course, fitting, considering Aurora only ever saw him in the school library, which was theoretically supposed to be a _quiet_ place. That was never the case, of course, but as it was only ever used by children who didn’t really mind noise as they paged through their favorite comic book, it was quite all right.

Most children only came to the library when their class was scheduled to come, and only some of them got advantage of the safe haven it provided, when it was scorching hot outside and they were ushered out of the classrooms. Ronan came quite often, too, but that was only because she was the librarian, and even he decided, on some days, he’d rather play outside than spend more time with his mom, who after all he’d be seeing later at home again.

If there’d been an attendance book, Aurora would’ve had to gift Adam Parrish a prize.

That’s why Adam Parrish’s foolproof “Good mornin’, Ma’am” not a minute after the bell rang, before he _quietly_ shuffled to his preferred spot by the window, was a bit worrying.

He sometimes didn’t come—that meant he hadn’t been to school, Aurora had learnt, after discreetly inquiring to Adam’s homeroom teacher.

“He gets sickly often, that’s what his mom said. She seemed such a lovely woman on the phone. Very caring, too. It must be a lot of work—He _looks_ rather fragile, wouldn’t you say? Like a little puff of wind’ll come and blow him away” Pauline had said, after which Aurora had stopped asking because she didn’t necessarily agree.

Most seven-year-olds would probably be thrilled to learn they were the subject of conversation between adults—Aurora got the feeling Adam would stop coming to the library if he learnt she was asking about him behind his back.

She approached him the following morning, after he’d finished the thin sandwich he always wolfed down—while stealing glances at her, as if he was afraid she’d call him out for it. Technically, children weren’t supposed to eat in the library, but Aurora didn’t mind as long as they didn’t harm the books. After all, Ronan ate his lunch there often, too, and she actually encouraged it as it meant she could keep an eye on him. He had a tendency to throw away the fruit bits, if she wasn’t paying attention.

“Hi, Adam. How are you today?” she asked, pretending to be busy watering the plants on the windowsill.

“I’m fine, thank you,” he whispered; his darting eyes trying and failing to hide his longing to go back to the book in front of him.

Aurora didn’t give up, and brought out the sweet voice she saved for when Declan was being especially stubborn about things.

“What are you reading today?”

Adam bit his lower lip, and his hand hovered for a moment over his book, spread open on the table. He then closed it and showed Aurora the cover.

“Just a book,” he said, as if him reading the fourth tome on an adventure series meant for kids at least three years older than him was nothing.

“Those ones are really good! Who’s your favorite character?”

Adam gently caressed the table, taking his time to consider.

“The witch,” he said.

Aurora nodded, and sat down on the chair next to Adam’s. She didn’t miss how he seemed to tense a bit when she came closer, so she stopped her hand before it reached the book.

“Which subject did you have last period?” she asked.

“English.”

By the time the bell rang again, signaling the end of recess, Aurora had learnt Adam liked it when they got to learn how Science made the world work and that he’d recently got a perfect grade on a Math test. She also realized he had a vaster vocabulary than Declan’s, who was a little over a year older than him.

“Do you want me to check this one out for you?” she asked, because she’d hoarded Adam’s attention and he hadn’t got the chance to finish his book.

Adam’s lips pursed.

“No, thanks. I’ll come back tomorrow,” he said, and it sounded like a promise.

He did indeed come the following day, but Ronan was also there and he’d brought Matthew along—Matthew was feeling a bit down because he still wasn’t able to tell _d_ apart from _b,_ when everyone else in his class already could. Aurora suspected it could be a case of dyslexia, so she made a mental note to research more on the topic and she set herself to the task of lifting her children’s spirits up while gently coaxing Ronan to finish his egg salad sandwich.

From the corner of her eye, she caught Adam Parrish quietly slipping the book into its precise spot in the shelf.

“Have you already finished it?” she asked, after a quick glance that assured her Matthew was content watching Ronan bicker with his classmate Blue Sargent.

“Yes, Ma’am,” Adam said. She noticed he’d actually increased the volume of his voice the previous day, when they’d been talking, but it was back down to a mere whisper again.

She smiled.

“Was it good?”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“Would you recommend it? Perhaps my son would like to read it, too,” she said, pointing to Ronan’s frowning pout one table over.

Adam considered his answer, and he eventually shrugged.

“It had some difficult words,” his verdict was.

“Then you are _also_ stupid!” Blue’s scream prevented her from continuing the conversation, and when she turned back after having told both children off from calling names, Adam Parrish was already gone.

After some quick consultation with Niall over the phone, that resulted in the realization that it wouldn’t do to take Matthew to any kind of doctor or therapist—he was not a normal child, after all, and Aurora herself had never been to a doctor outside of her birthings and could still remember her freezing panic when she had to go to the hospital for those. She ordered some books on the subject, then, because books were always the right answer and she could get them easily delivered to the school—which didn’t involve couriers arriving to The Barns—, and set a new weekly schedule that included studying with Matthew as a compulsory task for every member of the family.

It was distracting and quite time-consuming. It surprised nobody when Declan showed more patience than Ronan, and when Matthew however preferred it when it was Ronan’s turn to read stories with him. This all meant Aurora nearly forgot to water her plants on the school library’s windowsill, and outright neglected her tentative friendship attempts towards Adam Parrish.

She came to this realization on a cold Friday morning, when Adam Parrish approached her with a faint tremble to his hands and showed her a mystery book.

“You said checkin’ books is allowed, right?” he asked, in a very small whisper that didn’t even make Matthew raise his head from where he was pretending to review his assigned reading for the following period.

“You most certainly can!” Aurora smiled, and took the book from Adam’s hands. She explained what she was doing while she typed the title into the system, and asked Adam whether he’d finally decided that spending every day reading in the library was too boring for him.

He shook his head once, and Aurora saw a bit of excitement in the tiny breath he took.

“I don’t think I can wait ‘til Monday to keep reading,” he confessed, and it was the first time Aurora saw him smile. He was missing a tooth.

“What’s it about?” Blue Sargent asked, also coming to the desk with the latest issue in a horror story compilation collection between her hands.

Adam bit his bottom lip before turning to face her. “Dragons,” he said, in a somewhat firm whisper.

That made Matthew’s head snap up.

“Dragons are _cool_!”

“Yeah, but what about them?” Blue asked. “Are they evil dragons? Do they kidnap children, or something?”

“No!” Adam looked outraged, and clutched the book closer to his chest. “They’re _nice_ dragons.”

Blue didn’t look impressed. “There’s a vampire in here that kidnaps children,” she informed them, surpassing Adam and bringing her own book for Aurora to check out. “It’s _very_ scary.”

“Do the dragons fly? And can they breathe fire and all? Are they very big?” Matthew asked, his own reading completely forgotten.

Adam took a tiny step towards Matthew’s table and gave him an even tinier nod.

“They’re friends with this girl—she brings’em food.”

“A girl’d _never_ be so stupid,” Blue said. “Everybody knows dragons aren’t _friendly_.”

“Here you go, darling.” Aurora gave Blue her book back. “You have one week to read it,” she reminded her, because once she’d forgotten the library books weren’t of her property and had used an illustrated poetry book to try her new glittery pens. Aurora got to meet Blue’s mom after that, which was an interesting experience for more than one reason. She was gifted a lovely plant for her windowsill collection, which was actually supposed to help with healing damaged spirits, or that’s what Maura Sargent had said—she’d wanted to hear none of Aurora’s suggestions that it’d perhaps be more suited to live in the nurse office. “You too, Adam,” Aurora told the boy, who nodded and carefully packed his book into his faded bag.

“Thanks, Ma’am,” he said. Blue glared at his back when he left, just on time for the bell to ring.

“Have a nice weekend, Blue,” Aurora said. By the time she’d managed to send Matthew along to his next class, after a bit of nagging and a kiss to his cheek, the library was empty.

It was a busy weekend at the Barns, because Niall came home Friday night and stayed until lunchtime after Sunday’s Mass at St. Agnes. He insisted they had a camping sleepover in the fields, and Aurora accepted because the spring nights were warm enough to be spent inside fuzzy sleeping bags. Ronan of course caught a cold, because he woke up at dawn and followed his dad around while feeding the cattle— _without_ wearing a jacket. Niall laughed it all when Aurora herself found her nice morning disrupted by her child’s sneezes, so Aurora tasked him with driving to the pharmacy at Singer’s Falls to get cough syrup.

Ronan didn’t have a fever, so he was brought along to Mass and therefore able to say his goodbyes to Niall at the same time as the rest of them. He of course tried using his runny nose on Monday morning to beg out of having to go to school, but Aurora didn’t relent.

“You were fine enough yesterday to come to Mass, love.” She kissed his temple and pocketed the thermometer. “You’ll be fine in class today—if you get worse, just ask to be sent to the nurse. And I’ll have some chicken soup ready for dinner tonight, okay?”

Aurora could see Ronan was not very happy with this arrangement, but Matthew called for her to ask which sweater Declan was wearing because he wanted to match colors, and Ronan’s protests got swallowed by the morning rush.

She wasn’t surprised, though, when Ronan came to the library during recess. He slithered towards his preferred seat and didn’t even bother to take a magazine from the racks, to pretend he was reading, before he dropped his head in his arms.

“School’s awful,” he whined. Aurora frowned. She sat next to him and took some of his bangs out of the way, to be able to sense his temperature with the back of her hand. He wasn’t that warm.

“It can’t be that bad, sweetheart,” she said, as Ronan relaxed into her touch. She almost missed another shuffling of tennis shoes by the door, but when she looked up there was Adam Parrish under a baseball cap, hovering without coming in. “Oh, Adam, good morning. How was your weekend?”

Adam took a step towards her, but stopped again when Ronan raised his head, and took a more proper stance.

“Have you met my son Ronan, Adam? He’s your same age,” she said.

“Hello,” Adam whispered. “I’ll be back another time, then.”

“Oh, no, you don’t have to leave. Please, come in. Did you get to finish that book? Was it as good as you’d hoped?” Aurora stood up to get to the main desk, as she was sure Adam was going to hand her the book back.

But Adam only clutched his bag, and shook his head.

“Are you also sick?” Ronan asked.

“I’m fine.” Adam’s answer came a bit too fast, and too loud. Aurora looked at him—quiet, shy Adam Parrish fiercely gripping his bag.

“Adam,” she said. Adam flinched, so Aurora decided to sit down. “What’s wrong, honey?”

“Nothing,” Adam rushed. “It’s just—”

“Yes?”

“The book I checked out last Friday? You said I had a week to give it back.”

Aurora nodded, trying to keep her smile in place.

“It’s no problem if you need more time, though. You’ll just have to bring the book and I can extend your loan time for another week. Did you not have a lot of time to read this weekend?”

Adam shook his head so violently Aurora feared his cap would fall from his head.

“Who likes _reading_ at the weekend?” Ronan whined.

“A lot of people, dear. You like it well enough yourself when your dad reads to you,” Aurora reminded him, gently caressing his curls.

Adam was looking at her hand in Ronan’s hair when he spoke next.

“I won’t be able to bring the book back. Not this week, or the next one,” he said in a very small voice.

Aurora frowned.

“Why? What happened?”

Adam kept looking at her hand for a few seconds. There was definitely something _not right_ with the way he was behaving that morning.

“I broke it,” he finally said, and only then looked Aurora in the eye.

She didn’t get to ask him to elaborate on the book’s misadventures, or to warn him that, if he had indeed damaged a library book, she would have to speak with his parents. Because, having said what he’d come to say, Adam nodded one last time and fled the library.

“That was weird,” Ronan said. She agreed, but reminded him all the same that he was to be kind to other kids at school.

Two older girls came then, looking for books on the universe for an oral presentation, so Aurora decided to put her worries about Adam Parrish on hold, at least until recess was over.

Finally, the bell rang, and Ronan left after she’d kissed his cheek— there was no group scheduled to visit the following period, so Aurora watered the plants on her windowsill and then closed the library.

She could have gone directly to the administration desk, to ask for Adam Parrish’s home phone number and get it over with, but something told her that was not the best course of action.

She had been working as a school librarian for several years, now. She _knew_ accidents happened, of course, especially with children, but she also knew what to expect from most of them. Adam Parrish was not very likely to have _broken_ a book. Besides, he hadn’t said he’d spilled milk from his breakfast on it, or that he’d accidentally torn a page in his haste to turn it to keep reading. He’d said he had _broken_ it. How do you even _break_ a book?

Aurora stood in front of Adam Parrish’s class door. Pauline’s voice carried, talking about triangles.

Aurora knocked.

“So very sorry to interrupt, Pauline,” she said, with a bright smile, at Pauline’s confused face. “Would it be possible if I stole Adam Parrish for a second?”

“Sure thing. Adam, you’re wanted here.”

Adam stood from his seat with the same dignity a prisoner in the death row would carry. Someone shot a “Good morning, Miss Aurora” in her direction—she waved in the general direction of the class.

“It’ll only be a minute,” she assured both Pauline and Adam, who seemed very interested in his own shoes.

“Take your time. Adam already got this, right, Adam?”

Adam’s head jerked in a very stiff nod. Pauline closed the door, and they were alone in the corridor.

“Have you already had lunch?” Aurora asked. He must have, because children were only allowed food during recess, but she had a nagging feeling she’d taken a few things for granted regarding Adam Parrish that she shouldn’t have.

Adam didn’t say anything, which probably meant that he hadn’t.

“Would you like to share an apple with me, then?” she offered, and waited until he raised his eyes from the floor to look at her. He was confused, she could tell. “Would you like that?” she repeated, gentle and patient, and was rewarded by a very small “okay.”

Aurora led them back to the library and didn’t speak anything else until the door was closed, the apple was washed and cut, and Adam was sitting in his usual place.

“Thank you, Ma’am,” he politely said before digging in.

“You can still come here at recess,” she said, after he’d finished his half of the apple and another two slices Aurora put in front of him. Adam’s head shot up. “Sometimes, children don’t manage to bring back the books they’ve loaned in time. That’s okay, really. They get banned from checking out more books for a while, but they can still read them here and hang out with other children at the library. Normally, I have to call the child’s parents to let them know what happened—” Aurora paused, as Adam’s breath caught, “so I’ll take the chance to also tell them how great a reader you are already!”

“I won’t do it again!” he rushed.

“I’m sure you won’t, dear. I have a feeling you’re the kind of person who is great friends with books.”

Adam shook his head. When he spoke next, he was looking at the plants on Aurora’s windowsill.

“My ma won’t like it if you call home,” he muttered.

Aurora saw it was time to change the subject.

“Well, perhaps if you showed me the book, we could try to fix it together?” she suggested.

Adam suddenly stood up, making his chair fall.

“I told you I broke it!” he yelled.

“Adam,” Aurora said, calmly. He was breathing harshly, and he hid his trembling hands in his hoodie’s front pocket. He didn’t look at her. “Honey—”

“C’n I go back to class, Ma’am?” he asked.

Aurora wasn’t sure letting him go was the best course of action, but she didn’t know where to go from there, either.

“Sure, dear. See you tomorrow, right?”

He didn’t answer—he rushed outside the library and Aurora heard his quick steps get lost in the corridor.

At least he’d eaten the sliced apple.

After standing by herself in the middle of the room, not quite knowing where to begin, Aurora decided the only thing she could do was call Adam’s home and talk to his parents. Maybe there was something going on that was affecting the child—there could be a sickly relative, or a missing pet, or a moving-away friend. Children got upset for all kinds of things, and always noticed when the adults were also worried. Even Declan, who was a very mature kid, got a bit cranky when Niall was away for long, or when he left without saying goodbye. If his parents were changing jobs, or even divorcing, Adam would notice the tension and get stressed himself.

She still had ten minutes until next period—she was about to leave for the administration building when her phone rang in her purse.

Aurora didn’t have a lot of people call her, and her children were still in class. She picked up knowing it would be Niall, even though she didn’t recognize the international prefix flashing on her screen.

“Where are you calling from?” she asked as a greeting.

“Moscow. Not planning on leaving the airport, so not very recommendable ‘til now. Where did I find you, love?”

“Climbing a tree,” she said with a smile, because he knew where she was, and she knew he knew.

“How was Ronan this morning?”

“Whiny. Cuddly, too.” Niall hummed and didn’t ask about the other children, but Aurora told him about them anyway. It was a very short conversation—Aurora had to hung up when a group of fourth graders came with their teacher to do a project on the human body.

So Aurora was busy all of fifth period, showing bright-eyed children how to use the index on an atlas and photocopying diagrams of the musculoskeletal system, and suddenly it was time to go home.

She collected her children as usual. She had to chase after Ronan to take his temperature with the back of her hand, because Ronan thought staying still was boring and he preferred chasing after Matthew. She shared a look with Declan, because Declan appreciated the humor in such things and liked having private jokes with her.

“How was your Spelling test?” she asked him, as she guided the three of them towards the administration office.

“Good. Didn’t we park the other way?”

“That we did, darling. We’ll be going home in a minute. I just need to make a call first. Boys, come here!”

She supposed it would’ve been more efficient to make this call while the children were in class, perhaps the following day, but something compelled her to not stall on this.

“Matthew, love, come here and sit next to your brother. Ronan, you were sick this morning, please be a dear and pretend you are physically able to sit down for a minute.” She turned to greet the young man on the main desk afternoon shift. “Larry, dear. How are you?”

He was doing fine and kindly lent her a desk phone. He was quick finding Adam Parrish’s home number for her—it only gave Ronan time to moan about how hungry he was once. She shushed him with a stern look while she waited for someone to pick up.

“Hello?” It was a man’s voice.

“Hi, I’m calling from Mountain View Elementary. Is this Mr. Parrish?”

There was some shuffling on the line. “Yeah,” she finally heard.

“Great. Hello, I’m Aurora Lynch, the school librarian. I’m calling regarding your son Adam,” she added, because only now she realized she didn’t know if the Parrishes had any other children.

“What’s he done now?”

Aurora narrowed her eyes, both because she could perfectly see Matthew licking one of his backpack’s straps, and also on behalf of Adam.

“I’m actually calling because your son claims he has, and I quote verbatim, _broken_ the book he checked out last Friday to read at home. That, as you may know, is very unusual behavi—”

“You’re callin’ ’cause of the book?”

Aurora wasn’t in the habit of being interrupted, so she took an extra second to process the meaning of his words.

“Well, yes. Adam has actually refused to show me the book, so I can’t really be certain of what has really happened, but if he doesn’t bring it back in good condition by Friday he won’t be allowed to check out more books in—”

“The book’s broken all right, miss. He won’t be bringin’ it back. You’re the library lady, you said?”

Aurora forced herself to ignore Ronan also licking his own backpack straps, because this conversation was proving to be more challenging than she’d expected.

“That’s right. Is everything all right at home, currently, Mr. Parrish?”

There was a small pause at the other end of the line. Aurora could hear a dog barking.

“Look, miss. The boy’s a bit difficult sometimes, so you shouldn’t really be givin’ him books to just do as he pleases with them—Gotta leave for work now, miss.”

Aurora realized she’d been hung up on when she heard the disconnect tone.

“Mom, Ronan’s being _gross_!” At Declan’s cry, she turned her attention back to her children, only to see Ronan had already overcame his backpack-licking phase, only to enter a brother-licking phase.

After a quick, thankful smile that Larry answered with a thumbs-up, Aurora took the boys home.

The following morning, Adam Parrish did not come to school.

“His mom called earlier,” Pauline said, when Aurora asked her. “Poor kid got a stomach bug—I just hope it doesn’t spread around!”

Aurora nodded, because she still remembered the last time her three children had all been sick with a cold at the same time.

So she helped Matthew with his reading, and Ronan with his subtracting, and Declan with his sommersaulting—that they did at home, of course, because hay was excellent when you didn’t have padded mats, so naturally the three of them got involved in improving their gymnastics abilities, and that kept them occupied for the whole week.

Niall called once, from Malaysia, at breakfast time, so the children got to speak to him.

Aurora only realized it’d been a week since she’d last seen Adam Parrish when she glimpsed him on the corridor, Monday morning.

Adam presumably saw her too, because he ducked his head—he was wearing a nice red cap that day—and ran into his class without saying hello.

He didn’t come to the library that day or the following two.

On Thursday, she sat at the table where Ronan and Blue Sargent were discussing which cookie flavor was the best one, and asked them both about Adam.

“Oh, _him_ ,” Blue said, and made a face. “I don’t like him,” she sentenced.

“That’s not very nice, dear.”

“Well, _he’s_ not very nice either, right?”

Ronan emphatically nodded at that.

“Why do you say that?” Aurora asked.

“He got first place on our grade’s Spelling Bee! But I’d _told_ him I wanted to win, and he didn’t even care! He just looked at me, like he thought he was clever or something, and said: ‘but I knew that word,” and that was it! Like, that was _totally_ mean.”

“Well, Blue, if he knew the word, it wouldn’t have been fair that he didn’t get it right just because you’d asked, don’t you think?”

“But my mom had _promised_ she’d let me eat dessert food for dinner if I got first place! And I wanted yogurt! So that’s Adam Parrish’s fault.”

Aurora shook her head.

“Maybe his mom had also promised to get him a little prize if he won, have you thought about that?”

Blue tilted her head, and gravity pulled a bit on her two pigtails.

“He didn’t say anything about that,” she insisted.

“You never promise _me_ anything if I get first place on stuff,” Ronan huffed.

“My bad,” Aurora smiled, caressing his cheek. “Tell you what—I’ll give you a kiss if you get first place.”

“Really? First place on what?”

“On anything.”

“Oh.” Ronan nodded, and that sealed the deal. “Wait. What if I get second place? Or, like, last place?”

Aurora pretended she needed time to consider. “I’ll give you a kiss, then, too.”

Ronan gasped. “Mom! But, then, you _always_ give me a kiss! Even if I lose!”

“That’s right, sweetheart,” she smiled again, and kissed his temple. “So, you were talking about cookies?”

“Yes! Tell her, mom, how your shortbread cookies are _the best_ cookies in the world!”

“Are they, now? So what about the cookies people make in France? I bet _those_ are better!” Blue crossed her arms over her chest. Ronan stuck out his tongue at her, so Aurora decided it was time to intervene.

“You’d have to go to France to check that, then.”

“Yes! We totally should,” Blue said.

Ronan shrugged, which was probably as close to an agreement as they were going to get.

“In the meantime,” Aurora said, “perhaps you should ask Adam his opinion on the matter.”

“What? Why?” Ronan asked.

“And why not?” she asked back, with a _look_ that made him sit a bit straighter on his chair.

“Well, because—He’s not—He won’t talk to us. Right, Blue?”

“Right, right.” It was her turn to nod emphatically.

“How’s that?”

“And he doesn’t even want to come to the library anymore. He’s just so stuck up. Why do you always wanna talk to him, anyway, mom? He’s not that great, you know? He’s just—lame.”

Aurora’s scolding look turned up a notch. Ronan frowned and looked to the side.

“Jealousy is not a good look in you, sweetheart,” she said, and waited for Ronan’s nod to continue. “I’m sure Adam wants to be your friend, though. He just needs a little push. Have you tried inviting him to come to the library with you?”

“But he’ll say no!” Blue cried. Aurora turned her look on her, because you needed to use inside voices in the library. “Sorry, Miss Aurora.”

“Miss Aurora?” A sixth-grade girl was waiting by the counter with a book on her hands.

“Coming!” she told her. “You should try asking him,” she said to the younger children.

“Okay,” Blue sighed.

“Mkay,” Ronan scoffed.

Aurora nodded, satisfied, and went to check out the girl’s book.

Her strategy worked, somehow, because on Friday Ronan came to the library holding hands with Adam Parrish.

“Hi, Adam,” Aurora greeted him, with a smile.

Adam glanced at Ronan before greeting her back.

“Good mornin’, Ma’am.”

Ronan brought his new friend to the magazine rack, where they were soon joined by Blue Sargent.

From that day, not only did Aurora see Adam every morning at the library again—she also got to hear about him from Ronan every afternoon, as he soon turned his favorite conversation topic for the ride home from school.

Soon, it was spring break. Niall hadn’t managed to find time to come home for Easter, so Aurora allowed the children one play afternoon with a friend during the holidays. Declan turned the basement into a cinema for him and his best friend on his assigned day, and Matthew and his went to play with the chicken and had to be called back home when it became dark.

Ronan had been excited to show Adam the sheep, ever since he’d shown the other boy a picture of a baby sheep and Adam had declared it the most amazing thing in the world.

So, the day Adam was scheduled to come, Ronan woke up early and did all his chores without a single complaint, and before lunch went to tell the sheep all about Adam so that they wouldn’t make the same mistake he did in thinking he was not cool.

The sheep had not been impressed—that’s what Ronan told Aurora as he allowed her to brush his hair.

“But sheep are stupid like that,” he said. Aurora reminded him not to be rude to the sheep, and sent him to watch cartoons with Matthew as he waited for Adam to arrive.

Adam didn’t come.

The last school day before break, Aurora had asked Adam if he’d want for her to come pick him up, so that his parents didn’t have to look up where the Barns were.

“That’s fine, Ma’am,” he’d said. “Ronan drew me a map, and my ma said she’d bring me up there.”

“Maybe he got lost?” Ronan said, cartoons long forgotten, as he looked at the road from the porch as if with enough willpower he could produce a car with Adam in it.

“Maybe something happened, honey,” she told him, when it became too cold for Ronan to stay outside and she brought him in by the shoulders. “Maybe his parents couldn’t bring him, or he got sick.”

“Can’t you call him?”

But Aurora didn’t have Adam’s number at home, so she recruited Declan and Matthew to convince Ronan and they baked a huge strawberry cake together.

“I’m never gonna invite him anymore.” Ronan told her, that night, when she went to his room to kiss him goodnight.

“You’ll get to talk to him when you get back to school,” she said, caressing his cheek. “And you should ask him _nicely_ what happened, okay?”

“The sheep were all waiting for him! And he didn’t show up. He was not _nice_!”

Aurora knew it wasn’t a good idea for Ronan to go to sleep upset. “Darling, listen. Because Adam couldn’t make it, what about you invite some other friend tomorrow? We can ring Blue in the morning, what do you think?” She had Blue’s number because Blue had gifted her a business card with it, on behalf of her mother.

Ronan sighed, so dramatically it rippled through his whole bed.

“I guess. D’you think she’d like to see the sheep?”

“Maybe. We can ask her tomorrow, okay?”

Blue did indeed like sheep. As her mother was picking her up, though, she loudly announced she preferred goats. That led to Matthew begging Aurora to buy him a goat to keep in his room, which he of course didn’t get, until Niall finally came home and brought Matthew a goat plushie that glowed in the dark.

Ronan accosted Adam Parrish the moment he saw the boy locking his bike on the bike rack, on the first day after break.

“Couldn’t make it, that’s all,” Adam was saying when Aurora caught up to them, after having sent Declan to his class with a tight hug.

“Adam! Hi!” Matthew waved enthusiastically at Adam, but before Adam could figure if he was supposed to wave back Matthew was called by a group of friends from his class and ran to greet them.

“How was your break, dear?” Aurora asked, seeing as Ronan was pouting and on the verge of throwing a tantrum they really did not need just before classes began.

“Was fine,” Adam shrugged. He clicked the lock on his bike and took a step back, to make sure everything was in order.

The bell rang.

Swarms of children ran to the main door, but Ronan and Adam remained standing by the bike rack.

“See ya at recess?” Adam asked eventually, tightly gripping his backpack straps.

Ronan shrugged. “If you want.”

“I do. Want.” Adam nodded, Ronan nodded back. Adam smiled quite shyly before he joined the herds of students who were just a bit late for class.

“Did you see that?” Ronan asked, hopping on his feet.

“I did, darling. Now, you better get to class too, uh?”

Ronan hugged her middle and waited for his goodbye kiss before he too ran to class.

Aurora made her way to the library—she barely had time to turn on the computer before Pauline’s class knocked on her door.

Not all of the children were as familiar with how the library worked as Adam Parrish was, so Aurora explained how everything was organized while Adam sat there looking through the window.

The kids were given a worksheet on things they had to search for within the library and they scrambled around, excitedly bouncing when they found the books on the solar system or the dictionary section.

“Are you done already?” Aurora gently asked Adam, who after a bit of looking around with his worksheet and a pencil so tiny it barely had any wood left to hold it, had sat down on his usual spot.

“Yes, Ma’am,” he whispered, not looking up from the page.

The library was warm enough for a mountain of discarded parkas and raincoats to have appeared on the table closest to the door, but Adam was still wearing the rattled fleece jacket he’d arrived with in the morning.

“Is there something wrong, Adam?” Aurora asked. Adam shook his head, but his shoulders rose up and he hugged himself quite fiercely. “If you’re cold, you can sit closer to the heating,” she offered.

Adam didn’t look up.

“What does the red sticker mean again?” a curly-haired girl asked, and Aurora patiently explained the color stickers signified the age the books were directed to.

When she turned back to Adam, he hadn’t moved an inch.

“All right, children.” Pauline clapped to get everyone’s attention back on her, one minute before the bell rang. “As you may know, our school science fair is at the end of this month. Don’t forget you can come to the library during recess to do research on your projects!”

Aurora would have said Adam looked a bit green on the face when they lined up to go to their classroom, but it also may have been the reflection of his jacket. Possibly.

When they repeated the get-to-know-the-library activity with Ronan’s class, Blue was the first one to finish her worksheet—she demanded a prize that nobody had contemplated, so she eventually got a candy bar Aurora had in her bag. Ronan didn’t like that, so he didn’t come to the library at recess.

Adam sat quietly with Blue, though—both of them munching away their lunches, believing they were being conspicuous.

Matthew came to tell her his class had used brushes and acrylics to paint a spring landscape. When he left again, called away by his friends, Blue came to the desk to check out a book on renewable energies.

“I’m doing my science project on this,” she proudly told Aurora, and then proceeded to detail how she was going to attach all kinds of things to a big piece of cardboard so that it was pretty. “As well as, you know, _scientifical_.”

“I believe the word you’re looking for is scientific, dear.”

“Yeah, that. It’ll be super cool, don’t you think?”

“I’m sure of that! What about you, Adam? Do you already know what you’ll be doing?”

Adam closed the book he’d been reading and carefully placed it on the returns table.

“Dunno yet,” he said.

“Well, you can’t do it on energies too, so pick a different thing, okay?” Blue took her book and haphazardly pushed it inside her bag. Aurora felt bad in behalf of the crumpled papers she could hear at the bottom of the thing.

“I don’t—” Adam closed his mouth and shook his head.

“What was that, dear?”

“Uh. Nothin’.”

“Your mom and dad both work, right? Will they be able to help you with your project?” Adam shook his head again. “Well, what would you like to do it about?”

Adam shrugged, and looked to the side. Something in the way he bounced on the balls of his feet told her he wanted to say something, though, so she waited.

“There’s—”

“I’m going to the restroom,” Blue announced then. “Bye, Adam! Bye, Miss Aurora!”

When she left, there was only Adam and two other older children in the library. Adam looked up at her.

Aurora nodded.

Adam bit his lip.

“Yes?”

“There’s this experiment—” He rushed to the shelf where the science books were, and took out a big one with experiments for children from fifth-grade up. Aurora smiled while Adam flipped through it, careful as he turned each page. How he could have _broken_ that other book, she still didn’t understand. “Here.”

“I see.” It was simple enough—a battery, two wires and a lightbulb. It was flashy, and probably not what everyone else in second-grade would be aiming for. Aurora was pretty sure Ronan was thinking he could draw a cow giving birth to a calf and then bribe Declan with his house chore shifts so that Declan _wrote_ something for him on the cardboard. “Well, why not try it? It can be done.”

“Dunno.” Adam turned the page—the book offered several alternatives to complicate the experiment. You could build a house around the lightbulb, so that the light came through the window. You could add a switch button. You could use lemons instead of a battery. “I’d need a lot of stuff.”

Aurora hummed. “Well, you have still some time to decide, sweetheart.” Adam was looking at the photos on the book with the most emotion she’d ever seen on his face. He also remembered the gruffness on Mr. Parrish’s voice when she’d spoken to him on the phone, that one time. She looked at Adam’s beaten tennis shoes before speaking again. “If you need to, you can prepare everything here.”

Adam’s head shot up.

“What? Really?”

“Of course! You’ll only need to remember to take it home with you the day before the fair, and then to bring it to the fair itself!”

“Okay. Yeah. Yeah, I can do that.” Adam looked back down at his book, and _smiled_. “Thanks, Ma’am!” he said, before taking a notebook out of his backpack to start taking notes.

The library started getting fuller during recess. Every student from second-grade and up was required to take part in the science fair with a project, so a lot of them came to Aurora looking for inspiration. In the evenings, she helped Declan to decide what he wanted to do—they’d already discarded erupting volcanos, balloon rockets and magnets. He was currently leading towards the fungus present in bread yeast, but Ronan had made a comment saying how boring that was and Declan was having second thoughts.

Ronan, predictably, had already finished his own drawing—he’d only needed a gentle coax from Aurora to get to it one rainy Saturday afternoon. He had, also predictably, started drawing block letters to serve as a title—“The miracle of life”—, but then he got bored and Aurora had yet to manage to wheedle him back to finishing it.

Matthew was really excited too, because the previous year there’d been a kid from the higher grades giving away candy he’d produced himself and it had turned Matthew’s tongue purple.

After some insisting on Aurora’s part, and an elbow to his ribs from Ronan’s, Adam had shown her a list with all the things he needed to get to build his experiment.

“My ma and dad are working,” he said, as Aurora was reading through the list.

“That’s fine, dear. Most of these things we can get easily. I think we have some spare wire at home, somewhere, right, Ronan?”

“Dad’ll know.”

“Sure. And maybe even a lightbulb—I’ll have to check on that one, but if not you can easily buy one in town. A battery, too. And I’ll ask my friend Larry from administration to give me some arts and crafts material, so we’ll have plenty of cardboard and markers. Ronan can help you, seeing as he has decided his own project can wait.” Ronan was developing immunity to her raised eyebrows, probably due to too much exposure, because he shrugged.

“That—” There it was again—Adam’s smile. “That’d be so _cool_ , Ronan!”

“So, mom, Adam needs to start _tomorrow_. Because if not he won’t have time! He wants to write _so much_! Have you shown her?” He hadn’t, but he did then, in exchange for Aurora’s help in getting him the materials he needed.

She found wires and bulbs at home, but the bulbs were too big—she took a small trip to the small hardware store in Singer’s Falls and bought a battery too.

They set their work station in the most secluded table, behind the magazine rack. With Ronan and sometimes Blue’s help, Adam was building a cardboard shop to place the lightbulb in. He was painting the roof red—when she asked, he told Aurora red was his new favorite color.

The week leading to the fair, Aurora was tempted to call Adam’s home, to remind his parents that the science fair was on a Saturday, and outside the school, so they’d probably need to help him get there with his experiment.

But Adam told her it was fine.

“If they’re working I can give you a lift, okay? Just let me know,” she insisted.

“Thanks, ma’am, but it’s really fine. My mom’s workin’ at the fair, actually.” Adam bit his lip as he maneuvered his scissors to cut the crucial window on the front of the shop.

“Is she?”

Adam nodded. “As a cleaner.”

“My mom’s gonna be there, too,” Blue said, because she didn’t like feeling like she’d been left behind.

“My mom too!” Ronan said, because he didn’t like feeling like Blue had things he didn’t.

“It’ll be lovely, then,” Aurora smiled.

Everyone finished their project. Declan had a charming homemade loaf of bread to show for it, and Ronan a cute drawing of a baby calf—with roughly colored block letters—, and Blue her collage on renewable energies, and Adam his circuit and a big cardboard poster that looked like a high school essay.

It wasn’t really safe for him to bike home carrying that, as well as the plank with the circuit and the cardboard shop, so Aurora placed him on her car—with minimum complaining on his part, because he was actually proud of what he’d done. She didn’t have a spare child seat, so she drove slowly following Adam’s instructions.

He asked her to stop in front of some mailboxes.

“Okay, Adam. See you tomorrow! And good luck!” He nodded and shuffled out of the car, with a man-on-a-mission set on his shoulders as he wheeled his bike up the hill with one hand and balanced his project on the other.

Niall called that night and told the kids a story on the phone. Matthew fell asleep midway and Ronan was appeased by the fact that his dad had seen his drawn calf on a picture, but Declan had a small meltdown as he was brushing his teeth, because his bread would go to waste before Niall came home and could see his project.

“I’ll take hundreds of pictures tomorrow, honey, don’t you worry,” Aurora murmured on his ear as he clutched to her. Declan was old enough to understand it was not the same, but he eventually agreed it was the best course of action and made her take out a camera they had laying around in a cabinet in Niall’s office.

“Don’t forget to charge it, okay?” Declan reminded her as she kissed him goodnight.

So Aurora charged the camera while she mopped the floors, taking advantage of the fact that the children were sleeping.

And, in the morning, they all piled up in the car, and drove to the science fair.

It was still early, but most of the kids had already set their booths—Aurora had been delayed by an angry hen who hadn’t wanted her egg picked that day, so she brushed Declan’s protests aside and went with him to the set space for his class. After having left him there with his homeroom teacher, they went to do the same with Ronan, who was all so happy to claim the empty space next to Blue’s, presumably because her booth smelt quite a bit strongly.

“What’s that, dear?” Aurora asked, not completely sure she wanted to know.

“Can’t you guess? I made my own algal fuel! It doesn’t really work, like, properly, but it’s just super cool, don’t you think? Persephone said I should bring it anyway, for good luck.”

“I see.”

“It’s like a horse shat on your thing,” Ronan said. Matthew giggled.

“Language, dear.” Aurora looked around, but didn’t recognize Blue’s mom in the horde of parents crowding the second-grade aisle. “Could your mom make it, Blue?”

“Yeah, yeah.” She made a pause to stab a straw in her vanilla milkshake. “They’re all helping Orla with her project, though, ‘cause she kinda broke it last night and they’ve had to tape it back together. It was a mess, really. Orla’s my cousin,” Blue added after taking two sips, although Aurora knew Orla because she sometimes came to the library to ask if newer magazines on fashion had been ordered.

Aurora hummed.

“I’m gonna go see if Adam’s all set, then, and I’ll be right back, okay?” she told Ronan, who didn’t seem to mind too much, as he was busy blowing at the pinwheels on another classmate’s project.

She couldn’t find Adam with the rest of his class, though.

“Say hi to Miss Aurora, kids!” Pauline’s greeting granted her a hello chorus.

“Good morning! And what lovely projects you have all brought!”

“Where’s Adam, mom?” Matthew asked.

“He’s probably just running a bit late.” Pauline’s smile crumbled as she turned her attention to one of her students’ booth. “Oh, dear, no. That’s gonna fall over, let me help—”

She couldn’t help but remember Ronan’s teary eyes that night weeks ago, after hours of waiting for Adam to come and play with him. And how proud Adam had been just the previous afternoon, when Aurora had dropped him off.

“We’ll leave you to it,” Aurora said to Pauline, and ushered Matthew along.

She went back to Declan’s to take the promised pictures, and made both him and Matthew pose next to Declan’s loaf of bread. Then, she did the same with Ronan’s project, although she had to bribe him with the promise of homemade muffins the following day after Mass to get him to smile for the camera. Blue then demanded a picture with Ronan, and Matthew wanted to be in it too, and then Blue’s mom offered to take one of Aurora and her children, and when Aurora looked at the time they’d been there for two hours already.

She’d promised Matthew a tour, so after a short bathroom break they set their minds to see everything there was to see in the science fair—they counted three erupting volcanos, and a few projects on bacteria, and a particular one on soap bubbles that Matthew declared his favorite, until they reached a booth where the kid was making cotton sugar and that of course stole Matthew’s heart.

They didn’t find Adam Parrish, though.

Aurora was set on stopping by the school on the way home, to find Adam’s phone number and save it to her contacts.

“Can we go eat now, mom?” It was still a bit early for lunch, but Aurora indulged Matthew and they both got outside for a bit, to sit at the sunny picnic tables of a quaint burger place just around the corner. Matthew told her for the fifth time how his favorite cartoon characters were faring on the last episode on TV, as he happily munched on his fries.

They didn’t dawdle much, though, because she’d packed strawberries in both Ronan and Declan’s lunchboxes and she had a nagging suspicion that both of them would throw the fruit away if she wasn’t close to gently pressure them into eating it. Ronan used to love strawberries, but ever since Declan had declared he was not really happy with how their seeds got stuck between his teeth, Ronan had been on a fierce mission to convince everyone he hated them as well.

Declan made a face when she asked him about the strawberries, but he started eating them in front of her. Matthew clapped and asked for one, as if he hadn’t just finished his extra-large milkshake all by himself.

When they got back to Ronan’s booth, though, the last thing Aurora expected to see was Ronan sitting cross-legged on the floor, lunchbox open in his lap, sharing his strawberries with Adam Parrish.

“We’ve got an entire patch full of strawberries at home, and everything,” Ronan was saying, before he saw Aurora and grinned at her. “Look, mom! Adam said he likes strawberries! We can totally give him some of ours, to eat, right?”

“Of course, dear.”

“See? Told you!” Ronan’s excitement didn’t make Adam raise his head. He was wearing the previous day’s jacket.

“Adam?” Aurora didn’t like his wince when she called his name.

“You don’t want more?” Ronan passed him the lunchbox, but Adam didn’t move to take another strawberry.

“Adam, honey, where’s your project?” Aurora asked, purposefully gentle.

“Oh, right! I wanna see it!” Matthew said. Aurora caressed his blond curls when Adam only answered with a shrug.

“Have the judges already come here? Maybe you still have a chance to get into—”

“I broke it,” Adam said, still looking at the lunchbox.

Aurora pressed her lips together.

“Ronan, sweetheart, why don’t you take Matthew to the restroom? He needs to wash his hands,” she added, at Matthew’s surprised gasp.

Ronan looked at her, and then at Adam. Matthew tugged on his sleeve.

“Okay. I’ll leave those here, okay?” Ronan told Adam, meaning the strawberries.

Aurora sat on the carpeted floor, exactly where Ronan had been.

“Adam,” she softly said, and didn’t miss how he quietly sniffed when he heard. “Did you break your project the same way you broke that book? Remember? The one you borrowed from the library.”

Adam glanced at her from under his dusty fringe, still not fully facing her. He stiffly nodded.

“Can you tell me what happened, then?”

“Nothin’ happened,” he said, and then something like a sob coming directly from his chest shook his whole body.

Aurora kept looking at him, waiting, but Adam wouldn’t say anything else.

“That’s a pity,” she finally said. “It was a lovely project.”

“’T was a waste of time an’ it wasn’t brilliant or anythin’ ’cause it’s been done by _lots_ of people all the time an’—And—” Adam’s breath was getting labored as he buried his head on his knees. Aurora tentatively embraced his weedy shoulders and brought his trembling frame closer to her, until his nose was tightly pressed onto her collarbone. “This is a stupid fair anyway,” he muttered, fully crying now.

“I’m sorry, Adam,” she whispered to him as she rocked him, trying to shield him from the curious looks of the other children around them.

“The hell you think you’re doin’ in there?” someone said, suddenly. Adam flinched and crawled away from Aurora, eyes wide and nose running, as a lanky woman on a cleaner smock paused her sweeping to glower at them.

Aurora understood when she recognized the hard eyes behind her glasses.

“You must be Mrs. Parrish,” she said, forcing a smile as she got up. “It’s really wonderful to finally meet you—I’m Aurora Lynch, the school librarian.”

“Adam, stop botherin’ Mrs. Lynch.”

“Oh, no, please call me Aurora. Adam was just telling me how it finally wasn’t possible for him to participate in the fair—he’s understandably upset about that, taking into account how much he worked for—”

“He shouldn’t have broken his project, then,” Mrs. Parrish interrupted her, which was apparently an ordinary custom in the Parrish household. “Right, Adam?” Aurora didn’t like how Adam seemed to stop breathing when his mother addressed him, or how tiny his voice came out when he agreed with her.

From the corner of her eye, she saw Ronan coming back with Matthew. She nodded towards Blue and her family, who were all, quite nosily, listening in—her boys went to stand with them.

“Mrs. Parrish,” Aurora began. “Jolene, isn’t it?”

“It’s Jo,” she corrected, with the same suspicious look she had seen so many times on little Adam’s face.

“Jo, then. If I could please have a word with you—”

“About what?”

“Adam, of course.”

“Huh? Can’t stay out of trouble even at the library, Adam?”

Adam didn’t say anything, but he seemed to get smaller even when he stood up from the floor.

“Actually, Jo, I was going to tell you how smart Adam is. He likes reading a lot, did you know that?” Aurora had a feeling Jo didn’t know nor care, but she widened her smile anyway. “It’s a pity about that lovely project he had—did you get to see it at all, before it got broken?”

“I did so, yes.”

“Then that’s what matters—I’m sure Adam was very happy that you got to see what he’d managed to do!”

“I’m sure of that,” Jo said, but something was off with her tone. “Now. I’ve gotta go back to work. Adam, you better listen to what I say and stay out of the way. Understood?”

“Yes, ma.”

Jolene Parrish nodded, apparently satisfied with her son’s rushed whisper.

“Actually,” Aurora intervened, when Jo was already turning around. “I was wondering—what time do you get off today?”

Jo didn’t bother to hide her irritation anymore.

“And why are you askin’?”

“Because we’re almost done here, and my son would be really happy if Adam could come with us to our place later. He wouldn’t have to wait until you are done here, as I’d drive him, and then I can drive him back later or even tomorrow morning, if that’s okay with you?”

“Your son, you say?”

Aurora didn’t blink. “Ronan, yes. He’s the same age as Adam.”

Jolene looked from Ronan, who was not helping anybody with the glare he turned her way, to Adam, who was gaping at Aurora but closed his mouth when his eyes found his mother’s.

“Please, ma?”

“I suppose that’s alright, as long as you promise to listen to what this lady tells you and _behave_.”

Adam nodded three times before Jo raised one eyebrow in Aurora’s direction.

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” she said. The air seemed to get fresher when she left.

Adam’s smile was so wide Aurora could see his missing molars, before she gently pushed him in Blue and Ronan’s direction.

Blue’s mother produced a flask and offered it to Aurora. She took a sip without asking what was inside. It burned her throat, but it also helped her take a deep breath. She was certain she was flushing out of the sheer effort it was taking her to remain composed. She had the foresight to remind herself Niall wouldn’t be too happy when he knew she had invited a stranger boy into their home to stay the night. She drank again from the flask when she realized she didn’t really care that much.

It wasn’t long until the principal announced the winners. Blue came in second in her class, and she didn’t take it well. Matthew clapped for both Declan, who didn’t get a mention but was happy to leave the fair behind, and Ronan, who didn’t get a mention either but was so completely absorbed by his conversation with Adam that he had to be called three times to start cleaning up his booth.

Back home, after Declan had mourned his yeast project for a minute before finally dumping it in the compost tank, Aurora ushered everyone to change into farming clothes—they lent Adam some of Matthew’s—and distributed the various tasks that needed doing while she got started on dinner.

She called the kids back inside when the soup was quietly simmering on the stove and the lemon pie growing in the oven.

“But what is this? You all smell like you fell on a pile of dung!” Adam giggled, which probably meant they had all fallen on a pile of dung. “You know what? I don’t want to know. Shoes out, boys. Declan, you’re first to shower. Matthew, you’re sleeping with Declan tonight, so get everything you’ll need from your room because Adam’ll be taking it. Ronan, show Adam where the clean sheets are and help him pick some. And everybody wash their hands before touching anything!”

During dinner, Matthew confessed, umprompted, they had indeed _jumped_ into a pile of dung. Apparently, Adam had dared Declan to do it, and somehow Ronan had been the first one to jump.

“Yes!” Declan said, excitedly standing up. “And then he came after me saying he was the dung monster and was going to give me the dung disease! He was walking like this—” He mimed walking with his arms extended until Aurora’s look made him get back into his seat.

“If I was covered in dung you had to be covered in dung, too! That’s only fair.”

“Which could have been easily solved if you hadn’t been covered in dung in the first place, don’t you think, dear?” Everyone but Adam had taken seconds, so Aurora offered him another serving. “Adam?”

Adam’s jittery eyes travelled from his empty plate to the tureen in the middle of the table.

“It was my idea to play with the dung,” he muttered, not looking at Aurora’s smile.

“That’s fine, dear. Did you have fun?”

Adam bit his bottom lip.

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“That’s what matters, then. If you don’t want any more soup, at least have some pie, will you, Adam?”

Adam’s face seemed to lit up at the mention of the dessert.

“Pie?”

“I want a big slice!” Matthew said.

“You’ll get a regular one, dear, and if when you’re done you’re still hungry you can take another one.”

As usual, Matthew only took one slice of pie, like everyone else, because by the time he was finished he was distracted from the rest of the pie by his brothers calling him to play video games in the living room. Adam stayed back to ask if she needed help with the dishes.

“Don’t you worry, dear. It’s actually Ronan’s turn today, but we’ll forgive him from trying to duck out because we have a guest tonight.” Adam eyed the table wistfully, as if looking at a word he didn’t know the meaning of. “Off you go, then. Join the boys. I’ll call you when it’s time to go to sleep.”

Adam didn’t seem fully convinced, but he eventually nodded and scampered out of the dining room.

Aurora left the majority of the cleaning up for the morning, anyway, in favor of taking a long, warm bath before ushering everyone to bed. Ronan protested a bit at being separated from his friend, but was finally appeased when Aurora reminded him he wasn’t allowed to share a bedroom.

“Don’t worry, mom,” Declan told her, when she came into his room to say goodnight, in a whisper because Matthew was already sleeping soundly on the inflatable mattress. “I’ve got it,” he assured her, taking very seriously his responsibility as a big brother.

“Never doubted it, my love,” she whispered back, kissing his black curls before Matthew’s.

Ronan wanted a hug to go with his goodnight kiss, which she happily provided before leaving his room.

Adam sat up when she opened the door. With the help of the little light that came in from the corridor, Aurora could see Adam’s eyes cautiously following her until she sat on the bed.

“Everything okay, dear?” she asked, gently patting the bump on the covers that she suspected was Adam’s leg.

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“All ready for bed, then?”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“Great. Would you like a goodnight kiss?”

Adam hesitated for a bit, before enthusiastically nodding. He was all tensed up when Aurora came closer and pressed a light kiss on his temple.

“Goodnight, Adam,” she said, and closed the door after her.

She woke up early the following morning, to tend to the farm before breakfast—it was a Sunday, so the helpers were not coming to milk the cows and care for the chicken, but animals didn’t understand human calendars so of course there were eggs to collect and feeding to do.

She called Niall when she was back inside, as she waited for her coffee to brew, because she didn’t want to decide on her own whether it was a pudding-for-breakfast day or a celebrating-with-waffles day.

“Love?”

“Good morning, dear. Or, rather, what time is it for you?” She opened the breakfast cabinet and examined the sugar package, as if it held the answers she was looking for.

“Seven something in the evening, so I guess not much of a morning anymore.”

Aurora laughed softly.

“And what did you have for breakfast this morning, dear husband?”

“I didn’t. Woke up too late for that and went directly on to have lunch. What are _you_ having, then?”

Aurora hummed. “I’m trying to decide if it’d be best to stick to pudding or if this fine spring morning requires something fancier, like waffles.”

“It’s Sunday, after all,” Niall said. He didn’t specify where he was, and Aurora didn’t ask him about it.

“That it is. Might as well start on the batter, then. Everything good?”

“As usual. The kids are all right? How did the fair go?”

“As expected. They’re still sleeping.” Aurora didn’t mention there were four children upstairs—Ronan would probably tell his dad, anyway, if it wasn’t too long until Niall’s next visit.

He hung up first, and she focused on starting on the waffles.

After the batter was done, she went upstairs to wake the children up.

She knocked on Matthew’s room first.

“Adam?” She gently opened the door. “Good morning, dear. Time to wake—”

She fell silent.

The bed was unmade, the sheets all tangled, but Adam was not there.

“Adam?” she called, as she came inside to open the curtains. “Oh God. Adam?” She opened Matthew’s closet and looked under Matthew’s bed, but there was no child hiding in any of those places. “Adam?”

She hadn’t thought to check the bathroom first, so she called him louder as she quickly looked in the bath and inside the cabinet. She ran downstairs, calling for Adam as she checked the laundry room, and behind the couch where the children had been playing the previous night, and even the kitchen where she had _just_ been cooking breakfast. Why didn’t she think to check everyone was where they were supposed to be as soon as she woke up? She’d spent more than an hour outside, working. What if someone had come and gotten into the house? Niall worked with dangerous people, after all.

She started praying in her head as she ran upstairs again, her heart heavy with fear that someone could have taken her children while she was two doors over, idly sleeping.

She skipped over the knocking in her haste to make sure Matthew and Declan were safe.

“Mom?” Declan blinked heavily at her as he gasped awake.

“Oh, dear, thank God!” She quickly went to check on Matthew, who was in the same position she’d left him the previous night.

“Mom? What’s wrong?” Declan asked, as she rushed from their room to Ronan’s.

She took the deepest breath in her life when she opened the door and found two sets of eyes turning to her.

“Adam!” she exclaimed in relief, too happy to have found the child alive and safe to remember he was not her own—she all but ran to the bed and held Adam in a tight hug, as her heart calmed its frantic beating.

“Hi, mom,” Ronan said, and only then did Aurora regain her bearings. Ronan’s sheepish smile was _very_ appropriate, indeed.

“Now, what _exactly_ is the meaning of this?” she asked, with her sternest look firmly in place. She felt Adam’s already taut shoulders flinch in her embrace. She let him go.

“Mom?” Declan popped his head out Ronan’s door.

“You can go wake Matthew up now, dear,” Aurora told him, without looking away from Ronan.

“You see, mom, it wasn’t that bad,” Ronan argued, sitting down straight on the bed. “I didn’t even wake Adam up, so—”

“It was my fault!” Adam interrupted, before Ronan could tell the whole story. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Lynch, it was my idea, and Ronan told me it wasn’t allowed, but I insisted and now I should be the one to get in trouble, ‘cause it was all my idea, an’ I came in here last night, and Ronan didn’t know what I was plannin’ so please don’t be mad at Ronan—please!” Adam started sobbing, mumbling his apologies and insisting he was the one at fault while he looked on the verge of choking with his own spit.

“Adam. Adam, honey, you need to breathe. Nothing happened, that’s true. I was scared, that’s all. Can you breathe with me? Slowly, that’s it. C’mon.” While Aurora tried to calm Adam down, it was Ronan who started crying.

Aurora heard him sniffling—when she looked up, Ronan jumped out of bed and ran from the room.

Adam sobered up suddenly when Ronan banged the door shut, and he very slowly started making his way farther from Aurora. That was what made her decide it was Adam who needed her most at that very second, so she stayed where she was.

“Adam,” she called, ignoring his full-body wince. “Adam, sweetheart. It’s fine. Ronan’s fine. He’s probably only embarrassed that you saw him cry.” As if to support her, they heard the tap starting in the bathroom. “See? He’s just ran to wash his face. He’s not—running away from you, or leaving you here. Okay?”

But Aurora wasn’t sure Adam could hear her words. He was just looking at her, still breathing harshly, with tears running freely from his eyes. He just wasn’t making any sounds anymore. At all.

“Adam?” She extended her hand, because he obviously needed soothing and if he couldn’t hear her at least she could show him she was there, for him, and not leaving until he felt better.

Adam whined when she moved, and he took a step back that almost threw him from the bed.

Aurora froze.

“Oh, Adam, I’m sorry. I don’t mean to scare you.”

“Not scared,” he muttered, in a very shivery voice.

“I am,” she whispered.

Adam blinked twice before he answered. “You are?”

“Yes. I was very scared when I didn’t see you in bed, Adam. I thought something had happened to you!”

Adam swiftly wiped his wet cheeks off with his wrist. “Sorry,” he said again. He seemed to be shaking less.

“Don’t worry about that, honey. Are you feeling better?”

“Uh?”

“I believe what just happened is that you had some kind of anxiety attack. Has it happened before?”

Adam tilted his head, as if he had trouble understanding her words.

“Yes?” he finally said.

“At home? Do your parents know?”

Adam looked away from Aurora, and she felt she could breathe easier too when his puffy eyes released their hold on her. He shrugged.

“And what do they normally do when it happens?” Aurora asked, still trying to keep her voice soft and kind.

Adam rubbed his eyes, but he didn’t say anything for a long time.

Aurora waited, confident that Declan would have found Ronan by now and could sort that out until she could get to him.

“It’s a secret,” he eventually muttered.

Aurora pondered that. She was no child psychologist, but she was also quite certain something was not _right_ in all of this.

“What happened last night, then?”

Adam sniffled before starting to speak.

“I woke up, and the room was too big, and I was all alone, and then I was sad ‘cause of my project, ‘cause, y’know, I broke it? So I was cryin’ there, but I was quiet, I promise! An’ then I remembered I was in Ronan’s house, and Ronan was just _here_ , an’ he told me once it was okay if I asked him for a hug when I was sad—so I came.”

“I see. Did he hug you?”

Adam nodded. “But he said I couldn’t stay. He did!” Adam added. “An’ I was goin’ to go back to the other room, but then—I fell asleep. And forgot. Sorry.”

Aurora sighed.

“Okay. Okay, I’m really glad that Ronan’s being such a good friend to you. Do you like hugs, then?” Adam shrugged. Aurora decided to push it a little further. “If you wake up like that at home, do you ask your mom for a hug, too?” Adam tilted his head, in a slightly haunted manner.

“My ma doesn’t like it when I wake her up an’—stuff.”

Aurora couldn’t imagine a world in which one of her children woke up in the middle of the night wishing for a hug of all things and she didn’t welcome them into her bed. She supposed she and Jo Parrish were very different people, after all.

“Would you like a hug now, Adam?”

Adam’s surprised gasp broke Aurora’s heart a little.

“Right now?” he whispered.

Aurora nodded, and opened her arms in invitation. Adam hesitated for another second, before tentatively crawling closer to her. Aurora let him come to her, and felt him tense up when she embraced him, only to relax after a minute.

“Adam? Can you tell me what did really happen with your project?” she asked as she cradled his hair, still ruffled from sleep.

“I broke it,” Adam told her shoulder.

“But how, exactly?”

Adam wiggled a bit, so Aurora let him go. With careful movements, he came down from the bed and took a fallen pillow.

“I got in trouble,” Adam told the pillow, hugging it before he straightened it and put it back on the bed.

“What do you mean?”

“Should’ve known. Ma said—” Adam froze suddenly, and started biting his lip once more.

“What did she say?”

Aurora could almost _see_ Adam’s internal fight in his frowned eyebrows.

“I shouldn’t have bothered dad when he was busy,” he finally whispered.

“You bothered him?”

“With my project.”

“You wanted to show him? And what happened?”

Adam opened his mouth, but then he seemed to realize he’d been wringing his hands together for a while now, so he used them to flatten the T-shirt they’d lent him to sleep in. When he looked back up, he didn’t look to be in secret-sharing mode anymore.

“I broke it,” he repeated, and stood very still until Aurora nodded and got up from Ronan’s bed.

“Let’s go get breakfast, then,” she said, and wiped her hands in her jeans as if they’d just finished doing some dirty work.

Ronan had already forgotten he’d been upset, presumably at the sight of the waffle batter waiting for them on the kitchen counter, because the moment Adam and Aurora came in he reminded them how hungry he was and how late it was getting.

So they made and ate the waffles, and while the children were getting ready for church she packed some strawberries in a container for Adam to take home. And then she realized that meant she was taking Adam home, which was a place in which science projects and books got broken.

She didn’t have any proof of what happened in that house when nobody was looking. She only had suspicions, and months of observing Adam at school, and what little Adam had and hadn’t told her.

It wasn’t a lot, really.

She closed the container and went upstairs to get changed herself. Through a crack in the door, she spied Adam making Matthew’s bed.

She could feel a headache growing in her temples.

When everybody was finally ready, she drove to Henrietta. Adam was visibly delighted to get the strawberries on top of the whole sleepover experience—she thanked her as he got off Aurora’s car.

They were slightly late for Sunday school in St. Agnes, but the nuns welcomed Aurora’s family with a warm smile when she dropped her children off. She sat on a pew at the very back of the church while it slowly filled in.

The air inside St. Agnes always felt cold.

“Excuse me, are you waiting for confession?” someone asked to Aurora’s right. She’d shaken her head before she recognized Mr. Lawrence’s elderly sister.

Jennifer and Mark Brock, whose child was only a year younger than Matthew, sat on Aurora’s pew. In silence, they waited until the bells rang to signal it was ten minutes to Mass.

“Jennifer,” Aurora said, distracting the woman from her silent contemplation of the Virgin by the altar. “Would you be so kind to do me a huge favor and watch my kids when they came? I just need to make a quite urgent call.”

Jennifer waited before answering, perhaps expecting a fuller explanation, but Aurora didn’t elaborate.

“But of course, Aurora,” Mark said. “Take your time.”

“Thank you.”

Her phone took a minute to recover its signal after Aurora exited the thick church walls. She browsed for the number she needed.

Her hands trembled when she brought her phone to her ear.

The worker at the other side of the CPS hotline listened very patiently to her observations, and noted Adam’s home address when she gave it to her. She promised someone would go and check the situation as soon as possible.

Aurora went back inside the church in time to listen to the last five minutes of Mass.

That night, she made sure to give extra hugs to all three of her children, after they’d completed all their homework and were warmly tucked in bed.

On Monday morning, Adam greeted her cheerfully when he saw Aurora waiting for him by the door of his classroom.

“My ma says thank you for the strawberries,” he told her with a smile.

Aurora hadn’t been sure he’d be there at school at all, so she smiled back.

“How was your day yesterday?” she asked.

“Good! We even had a visit.”

“Oh?”

“She was a very nice lady, an’ then when she left my ma made casserole!”

The bell rang and Adam glanced at Pauline, already standing in front of the board. Aurora wished him a good day and let him go to his class.

She returned to the library with the feeling an enormous weight had been lifted from her shoulders.

After that first visit, Adam was allowed some other times to the Barns. The Lynches did not usually have people over, but one day Adam mentioned his parents would be working the whole Saturday and Aurora called his mother. Jo was surprisingly in favor of Adam spending some time with Ronan, so it was decided any time she or her husband were busy at the weekends, Aurora would pick Adam up.

There were no more sleepovers, though, so Aurora didn’t see a reason to tell Niall about it.

The last week of June, school let out for the summer. Ronan spent the first day of his holidays strolling around the fields on a sleeveless shirt, so he got a quite bad sunburnt that left him in bed for two days after that.

He felt instantly better when Niall came back home. And he was planning to stay for at least a month, so they celebrated with a family barbeque.

Niall had brought presents. Foreign toys and games and things that smelt like faraway places. He gifted Aurora expensive clothes and rare books and warm kisses at night.

On the fourth of July, they baked a cake. They weren’t planning on doing anything particularly fancy—just having some cake and lighting some fireworks, away from the barns so the animals wouldn’t get scared. Declan had asked to go to the parade in Henrietta, but Niall had said maybe the following year, when Matthew was a bit older.

It was that morning, while Ronan was helping Aurora measure flour, that he remembered they had forgotten about Adam Parrish’s birthday.

“Mom!” Ronan cried, turning while still holding the flour. “Mom, why didn’t you remind me! Now Adam’s gonna think I’m a terrible friend!” Their kitchen floor was turning white, so Aurora gently took the flour from Ronan.

“Well, I didn’t know yesterday was his birthday. We could call him to say happy birthday—”

“Do you think he had a party and didn’t invite me? Do you think he invited _Blue_?”

Jo and Robert Parrish didn’t strike Aurora as the kind of parents who invited hordes of children to their home for a birthday party.

“Surely he just celebrated with his family, honey. You can still call, though.”

“We _have_ to bring him some cake, mom.”

“I’m sure he already had cake yesterday, dear.” But after saying it, Aurora realized she wasn’t sure about that at all.

They hadn’t seen Adam for almost two weeks, since the last day of school.

“Can he come to celebrate with us, mom? Please?”

“Let’s finish this cake first, all right? And we’ll talk about it later.”

They swept the dirty floor, and mixed the flour with everything else. Ronan was very happy he was allowed to whisker the batter.

Aurora shooed him away from the hot oven when she placed the cake pan inside.

“Can we go see Adam now?”

Aurora sighed.

“I’ll go talk to dad,” she finally decided. “You get changed.”

“And then we go?”

“Go get changed, dear.”

Ronan didn’t insist, but he looked at her with a very convincing imitation of Matthew’s puppy eyes.

Niall was sipping a beer on the shadowed front porch, vaguely watching Declan and Matthew run around under the plum trees.

“Love?”

“I’m taking Ronan to Henrietta,” Aurora said, sitting on the steps next to her husband.

“What for?”

“It was his friend’s birthday yesterday, and he forgot.” Niall raised an eyebrow, because he knew she wasn’t finished. “A few months ago, I called CPS on the kid’s parents,” she said.

Niall took a long sip from his bottle.

“You called CPS,” he repeated, his unblinking eyes fixed on her.

“I want to make sure everything’s still as it’s supposed to be,” she explained. Not waiting for his answer or his permission, she got up.

Her apron was stained—she untied its laces.

“Are we going now?” Ronan called from inside the house, running down the stairs.

“When the cake’s ready, sweetheart,” she called back.

The car seats were scorching hot when they got inside. Aurora turned the AC on all the way as Ronan waved goodbye at his dad through the window.

Niall didn’t wave back.

The road was crowded with people going to see the parade, so they took longer than usual to get to the trailer park where Adam lived.

Aurora parked where she normally did, but Adam didn’t come running out the door as he’d do when they came to pick him up. He wasn’t expecting them, of course, so that was perfectly normal.

Aurora got out the car. She had half a mind to tell Ronan to wait inside—she would have, if it hadn’t been so hot.

A dog barked somewhere when Aurora knocked on the blue door. Something told her people were watching them through the lace curtains on their windows.

After a second knock—there was no bell to ring—, Jo Parrish opened the door.

She didn’t look happy to see them.

“Adam’s not home,” she said, before neither Aurora nor Ronan had time to say hello to her.

“Where’s he?” Ronan asked.

“Ronan, dear.” Aurora placed the hand not holding the container with the cake on Ronan’s head. “Good afternoon, Jo. I hope you’re well. We just realized this morning that yesterday was Adam’s birthday, so we brought him some cake.”

Jo crossed her arms over her bosom.

“That’s kind of you, but right now he’s not home. If you leave the cake I’ll tell him when he gets back.”

Aurora almost placed the container on Jo’s extended hand.

“What time will he be back, then? Ronan and I would very much wish him a belated happy birthday.”

“Not until after the parade. It’ll be late.”

“Can we wait for him, mom?”

Aurora didn’t like the way Jo’s eyes narrowed on Ronan. Only then did she realize Jo’s posture didn’t let her see anything from inside the trailer.

“We should be going, actually,” Aurora said. And then, with her most candid smile: “If it’s not a problem, Jo, could I use your restroom real quick first? It’s a long way back home.”

“Aren’t you goin’ to the parade?”

“Not this year, no. It’ll just be a second, if you don’t mind.”

Jo’s pinched lips told Aurora she most certainly did mind, but she opened the door to let them in.

The inside of the trailer was as modest as it looked from the outside. There was a small table with three folding chairs, and a rattled couch where Ronan got to sit. Aurora counted at least ten empty beer bottles next to the sink. Jo pointed her to one of the three closed doors.

“You wait for me, all right, dear?” Aurora told Ronan, and gave him the cake.

The TV was on, at such a high volume Aurora could hear it even through the closed bathroom door. There was barely enough space in the tiny room for her to turn around.

She breathed deeply. The bleach smell was strong.

“What are you doing?” Jo yelled, and for a brief second Aurora thought she’d caught her surveying the room, trying to find a clue on what she should do next.

But Jo kept shouting, and Aurora realized she was addressing Ronan.

She burst the door open.

Ronan wasn’t in the couch.

Aurora could see the whole room in one look. She couldn’t see Ronan. Nor Jo.

The screams guided her to another door—Jo was hauling Ronan off the room by his arm, and Ronan was kicking her and calling her names to try to prevent that. On a single bed that took over the whole space, Adam Parrish stood as still as a statue.

“Let go of my child!” Aurora cried, coming into the very crowded bedroom.

Jo released Ronan, who immediately jumped on the bed to check on Adam. The room was barely lit—only some of the afternoon dazzling light managed to come through the shut blinds—, but even so Aurora could see the bruises thriving on Adam’s face.

“Ronan, take Adam to the car,” Aurora said. She fixed her glare on Jo, daring her to try to stop them.

Jo wasn’t even looking at her.

“Your dad’s coming home soon,” she said, presumably to Adam. The child, who hadn’t been responding to Ronan’s coaxing, flinched.

Aurora took her phone out.

“Ronan, take Adam outside,” she repeated, and her voice also made Adam flinch. “I’m calling CPS,” she warned Jo.

“I’ll be telling them you kidnapped my son.”

“I’m bringing Adam to the hospital,” Aurora said, quickly averting her gaze from Jo to look for the number she needed to call in her saved contacts.

“C’mon, let’s go,” Ronan whispered in Adam’s ear, though Adam had yet to move.

“Adam, stay where you are,” Jo said, placing her hands on her hips. Her form seemed to engulf what little oxygen could be found in the tiny room.

Adam stayed where he was.

Aurora didn’t trust Jo alone with him while she placed her call, so they all remained in their places, tensely listening to Aurora’s explaining of the situation to the kind person on the line.

“A social worker’s coming,” she informed Jo.

“My husband’s comin’ too,” Jo informed her.

Aurora didn’t know if that was a good or a bad thing. She didn’t know who it was that had hurt Adam like that—it was clear for her that both his parents dismissed Adam and belittled him, but she couldn’t figure the exact nature of the family dynamics. Would it be better if Mr. Parrish wasn’t home when the social worker got there?

Aurora wanted to go and check on Adam, but Jo put herself between her and the children when Aurora tried getting closer. Aurora decided to wait—Adam looked a bit calmer now, leaning on Ronan, eyes fixed on the floor.

The social worker—a smiling man who introduced himself as Mr. Duong—arrived before Mr. Parrish did. He shook both Aurora’s and Jo’s hands and looked around the trailer as if in wander there wasn’t a child in sight as he’d been promised.

“Adam’s in his bedroom,” Aurora said, because there was a hurt child waiting, and a looming promise of a man coming, and Mr. Duong was eyeing the instant soup packages on the kitchen counter.

“Let’s meet him, yes,” Mr. Duong said, and smiled at Jo until she showed him the way with a pinched expression. “Who of you two is Mr. Adam Parrish?” Aurora heard him ask the children, before the door closed.

That left Aurora and Jo alone in the trailer, together with the loud TV.

Jo unfolded one chair and sat down on it, angrily crossing her arms in front of her chest. Aurora hadn’t been offered a seat, so she remained standing.

“You know,” she said, unable to stand the tense waiting nor Jo’s glaring at Adam’s closed door, “Adam’s a really great kid.”

Jo’s lips thinned.

“My husband’s coming home soon.”

“Do you not see what’s going on?” Aurora asked. “He’s your son, Jo!”

If Aurora had been in a less frantic state of mind herself, Jo’s freezing stare would probably have made her shiver despite the warmth in the room. As it was, it only made her clench her jaw.

“You flush people,” Jo said, “think it is right to come barging into other people’s _homes_ and lecture us on how to live our lives—You wait ‘til Robert comes home, he’ll tell you alright what—” She cut herself off when they heard an engine coming closer to the trailer. “That’s him there.”

Robert Parrish didn’t need to use his key because the door was open. He had a very rugged face, which turned into a mask of unadulterated ire when he saw Aurora in his living room.

“Why did you bring her in here?” he asked Jo.

The door to Adam’s room opened before Jo could answer. Mr. Duong emerged, holding a trembling Adam’s hand. Adam stopped walking then moment he saw his father.

“You must be Mr. Parrish,” Mr. Duong said. He wasn’t smiling anymore.

Ronan came out of the room too and buried his face in Aurora’s middle. When she checked, she wasn’t surprised to find his eyes red from crying.

“What is going on, Jo?”

“My name’s Kevin Duong, I’m an emergency social worker for the Virginia DSS. Mr. and Mrs. Parrish, Adam is in need of a doctor right away.”

“You ain’t taking him nowhere—”

“Mr. Parrish, I am asking to accompany you on your way to bring your child to a hospital, because that would grant Adam the medical attention he needs faster than if I have to try and get an emergency removal court order to remove him from your care—considering it’s a holiday today. However, the circumstances here allow me to forego that little step, so it’s up to you.”

“What the hell are you on about, this is not—”

“Mr. Parrish, if you do not cooperate—”

“Like hell I’m cooperatin’ with you! Who gave you permission to come into my house?”

“I’m ready to call the police,” Aurora said, holding Ronan’s head closer to her.

“That’ll not be needed,” Jo said. “You take the boy, he gets checked, and then you bring him back, right? You payin’ for it, too?” she asked Mr. Duong.

“Mrs. Parrish, I’m sorry if I haven’t been clear enough. A judge will have to decide if Adam comes back to this house.”

“A judge!”

“In court.”

Robert Parrish glared at Adam, who was sobbing silently and trying to hide behind the couch, even though Mr. Duong was still holding his hand.

“Come on now, Adam. Let’s get you patched up,” Mr. Duong said, and nobody stopped him from leaving the trailer.

Aurora took Ronan and fled after him. Only in the car, tailing Mr. Duong to the hospital, she remembered the cake they’d left behind.

“We forgot the cake,” she told Ronan.

She saw him squirm in the rearview mirror.

“Don’t care about the cake,” he muttered, and went back to look mournfully at the blue sky outside.

They were sent to a waiting room full of children, from where Aurora called Niall to tell him they’d be late.

“Was it worth it?” he asked her.

“Yes,” she said, and hung up. Ronan didn’t take long to get restless, so she sat him in her lap and hugged him as tight as she could, while whispering poems in his ear.

“Adam said he didn’t celebrate his birthday,” he told her, when she thought he’d fallen asleep. Aurora kissed his temple.

Eventually, Mr. Duong brought Adam to say goodbye.

“We’ve found a nice emergency foster family for him, right, Adam?” In the bright hospital lights, the bruises on Adam’s face were more disturbing.

Adam nodded. Aurora realized she still hadn’t heard him speak.

“It’s going to be all right, Adam,” she told him, in her kindest voice. Adam’s eyes were slightly glassy when he looked at her.

Slowly, she bent to kiss the top of his head. Adam didn’t shy away from her, but he stood really stiff.

“Can we come see Adam tomorrow, mom?” Ronan asked.

Aurora didn’t know. Mr. Duong’s smile didn’t help.

“We’ll see, dear. Adam must rest now.”

“Bye, then.” Ronan hugged Adam, who allowed the hug and even circled his arms lightly over his friend.

“Bye, Ronan,” Adam whispered, and went with Mr. Duong.

At the Barns, Ronan cried when they lit their fireworks.

They didn’t see Adam the following day, or at all that week. Aurora tried calling Mr. Duong to know how things were going, but Adam had already been placed under a different social worker.

When school began in the fall, Aurora found out Adam Parrish’s records had been claimed by a different school, two towns over. That meant he was living somewhere else, presumably out of harm. Aurora was glad for that, and told herself it was for the best that he’d been removed from his house.

She met Jolene Parrish once, a few years after she’d last seen Adam—Jo was filling her gas tank and didn’t acknowledge Aurora at all, even though it was more than likely that she’d seen her coming out of the gas station’s shop with Matthew and an armful of marshmallows.

Eventually, even Ronan stopped asking about Adam Parrish.

He was still friends with Blue, even though they fought sometimes and would spend weeks without speaking with each other.

When he was old enough, Niall insisted Declan should go to Aglionby Academy. Declan was thrilled by that prospect, so it was decided his brothers would also change schools as soon as they finished their elementary education.

Ronan blamed Declan for that.

Still, after a while he managed to make some new friends—Gansey and Noah were really charming children, and Aurora was glad Ronan had found them. She would sometimes pick Blue up from her school and then head for Aglionby to gather everyone else, so that a nice afternoon in the delightful company of some sheep could be had at the Barns.

One such afternoon, early enough in the school year that blazers were not needed over the uniform sweaters, Blue gave her a jar full of cookies when they parked in front of Aglionby.

“Persephone said today was a cookie kind of day,” she explained.

“What kind of day is that?” Matthew asked, but neither Blue nor Aurora could answer.

They saw Noah first—he was the tallest one. He waved at Blue and elbowed Ronan, who was too deep in his conversation with Gansey to acknowledge his mother waiting for them.

When the boys were close enough that Aurora could gather the discussion versed actually on something about Wales, someone called Ronan’s name.

Another boy came running towards them, shirt sleeves rolled up and a heavy looking messenger bag dangling from one shoulder.

Aurora needed a few seconds to recognize him.

“Ronan. Hey. You probably don’t remember me, but I’m—”

“Adam,” Ronan breathed, at the same time as a plump woman who had come after Adam. She exchanged Adam’s bag for an Aglionby sweater she’d brought folded over her forearm.

“Oh, sorry, Miranda. Thanks,” Adam said, with a very bright smile. “Hi,” he told Ronan. He turned to Aurora, too, still smiling, all grown up and long-limbed and not quiet at all. “It’s been a while.”

**Author's Note:**

> Title from a haiku by Kobayashi Issa: confusion / skinny mosquitoes, skinny fleas / skinny children.
> 
> Big shotout to [@mariagvogel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mariagvogel/pseuds/mariagvogel) for patiently betaing more than half of this and to [@creativefiend19](https://archiveofourown.org/users/creativefiend19/pseuds/creativefiend19) for suggesting Jo as Mrs. Parrish’s name!
> 
> I’d love to hear what you thought of this so please leave a comment or come talk to me [on tumblr](https://hklnvgl.tumblr.com/)! 💛


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